Unending: Ghost Cats
by Regina Raptorum
Summary: Serenity is on the drift after the fuel cells bottom out. A very peculiar ship with an even more peculiar captain comes to their rescue, but can the crew of Serenity trust them? Set sometime after the series, but before the movie. On hold. Please RR.
1. Out of Gas

So yeah, here is first bit of my Firefly fic. Just a small warning, there might be some OOC. Not really much happening in the first chapter, just setting some stuff up. The chaos will commence in chapter 2, whenever that gets written and uploaded. Reviews are the lifeblood of authors, please contribute to the wellbeing of this humble author.

* * *

_Serenity_ was on the drift. Her captain, Mal Reynolds, was not happy about this.

"Hey, Wash, any luck yet?"

The red-headed pilot looked up from his dinosaurs and looked over at the com. "No."

"Damn. Cargo's gonna be late."

Wash shrugged philosophically. "Happens when you have to make six unplanned detours to avoid Alliance patrols." He turned around in his chair. "Could be worse."

That it could. There was a significant difference between having empty fuel cells and having a vital component on the engine suddenly blow with no replacements. They weren't going anywhere, true, but they had heat and air and nothing had exploded. And after that time, they had never gone so far away from traveled routes that it was practically an impossibility that a distress call would be picked up. All they had to do was wait.

Mal hated waiting. "Lemme know when someone calls."

"Righto." Wash turned back around and resumed playing with his dinosaurs. Near as Mal could tell, he was reenacting some ancient children's movie.

Mal wandered into the kitchen. Most of the crew tended to gravitate there when there wasn't anything else to do. Zoe was sitting at the table, reading a book. "Any luck, sir?"

"Not yet. Somebody'll come by. Where's everyone else?"

"Kaylee's down in the engine room tryin' to figure a way to jury rig a fuel cell. Jayne and Book were working out, last I saw. Simon seems to have decided to make himself scarce."

"Probably for the best." Mal wasn't the only one who got antsy when they weren't moving, and Jayne didn't have nearly as much self control. And it would be just as well if they could avoid having to have Simon patch anybody up when there weren't no call for it. Especially if it was likely that he'd have to patch himself up. "What about Doc's sister?"

"Over in Inara's shuttle."

"Well, maybe she can keep her out of too much trouble."

"Hope so, sir."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Captain."

"Nng."

"Captain."

Jeyra Locke growled something into her pillow best left untranslated. She turned over and pulled the pillow over her head.

"Captain, we are receiving a distress signal, and Marcus wishes to know how to procede."

Locke thought about hurling her pillow at the offending console. But then her pillow would be all the way across the room, and Athena probably wouldn't get the point anyway. "I'll be up in a minute."

It took her a little longer. "What's up, boy?"

Her first mate looked at the console. "Looks to be a transport ship. Distress message says their fuel cells are bottomed out."

Locke looked at the screen. "Hn. Firefly class, haven't seen one of those in a while. Have they picked us up on their scanners yet?"

Marcus snorted. "Pft. Are you kidding? We could be fifteen feet from their hull and the only way they would pick us up is if someone happened to look out the window."

"Jus' checking. Athena, you scanned them yet?"

Athena's console screen glowed briefly. "Still in progress, captain. I'm picking up nine crew, both shuttles still on board, life support fully functional, no discernible mechanical difficulties beyond depleted fuel cells..."

"What about weapons?"

"Scanning… Nothing heavier than a large personal weapon. No assault weapons or artillery."

Locke considered. "Well, couldn't hurt to offer a hand, I suppose." She turned on the com. "Transport ship _Serenity_, please respond."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The com crackled to life. _"Transport ship Serenity, please respond."_

Wash quickly put his dinosaurs down and picked up the com. "This is _Serenity_."

_"We are responding to a distress call."_ The video display was very, very twitchy. It kept jumping and rolling. Wash figured that they must be out at the extreme end of com range.

"Glad to hear it. We're tired of sitting here." He reeled of the coordinates. "What's your estimated arrival time?"

The woman on the other end paused, and seemed confused. _"Nani? … Oh."_ He saw her turn around and yell over her shoulder. _"Stitch, turn the goddamned chameleon off."_ There was a muffled response, and suddenly the picture stopped rolling. Not only that, but a ship suddenly appeared on his instruments, less than five hundred yards away.

The sound of Wash falling out of his chair and yelping in Chinese could be heard in the kitchen. Mal came running, and Zoe wasn't far behind him. "What is it?"

"Sorry, Mal, just a little startled. Actually, a lot startled. Ship seems to have popped out of the black. Literally."

Mal blinked, and turned blankly to look at the console. The com was on, and a slightly befuddled woman was on the other end. _"Serenity, are you there?"_

Mal sat down. "We're here."

_"Where's the other guy?"_

Mal glanced over at Wash. "He's just a mite confused, I think."

_"I apologize for startling him; we forgot to turn off cloaking before we hailed you."_

Warning bells went off in Mal's head, but he didn't show it. Ships with cloaking were rarely good. "I'm Captain Reynolds."

The woman nodded. _"I'm Captain Locke. If you don't object, I'll come over and see if we have the equipment to recharge your fuel cells. If we can't, we'll be happy to give you a tow."_

"I could just get my mechanic in here; she knows what manner of fuel cells we got."

The other captain shrugged. _"I wouldn't know anything about the matter, is the thing. And I don't think she could tell me what I need to look at."_

Mal considered it for a moment. She didn't really seem to be a threat, but he'd learned the hard way that appearances were deceiving. "No offense meant, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable about that."

_"Don't blame you; there's craziness in this 'verse. Would you feel better if I came alone, and unarmed?"_

"…" Mal was astounded. "I think that'd be pretty stupid; I mean, we could all be violent psychos, for all you know."

_"Bah. I don't mind getting' shot, and anyway, I don't think you'd wanna upset my crew that much."_

Mal thought. "I… guess that sounds reasonable."

_"Yay. We'll be attaching to your airlock in a couple minutes, then." _The com clicked off.

Mal turned to look at Zoe and Wash. Finally, he managed, "What the _hell_ was all of that!"

"It's a cat. Or a ghost." River was in the door way, and none of them was really surprised that they hadn't noticed her. "A ghost cat." She smiled, and seemed satisfied with that pronouncement.

Mal frowned. It seemed to him that the last time she had said anything about ghosts, there had been Reavers, and that was pretty much something he'd rather avoid. He hit the intercom. "This is the captain. Another ship has hailed us, and their captain wants to board to get a look at our fuel cells. We have been offered fuel or a tow. However, I'm not entirely comfortable with this. Jayne and Kaylee, meet her at the airlock. I'd appreciate it if one of you had a weapon, but be polite."

He paused, and looked at River. "Doc, get up here."

Simon poked his head in less than a minute later. "Yes?"

"As I said, we're about to get boarded, and I have little to no idea what these people are like. Might be best if you and your sister make yourselves scarce."

Simon paled. "Uh… is this going to involve space suits?"

Mal grinned. "I don't think we need to do anything that drastic, just keep out of sight."

"Right."


	2. Captain Locke

Author's Note: Okay, yes, next chapter. Thanks to the two people who reviewed.   
To babsji: I actually had not realized that the term cat could apply to River as well. I think I might have to use that.  
To Sweetbriar: I know that the characters use Chinese, not Japanese. The only bits of other languages that I'm going to use for the most part are the few bits that are common place on the show. Only one character uses Japanese at all (and just warning you, bits of Gaelic as well), and there's a reason for it that will be explained later. A logical reason, even. And some of the grammar issues were intentional; I was trying to mimic the not-very-proper way of speaking that's common. Of course, I'm sure there's some things I didn't do on purpose.   
Anyway. Enjoy. Reviews please. I promise there'll be action in the next chapter.

* * *

The airlock hissed as it was pressurized. Jayne shifted his grip on Vera, looking annoyed. "Mal, why you wanna do a dumb thing like lettin' some crazy stranger on board? Got enough crazy people on this ruttin' boat already." He looked meaningfully towards the guest quarters where Simon and River were currently hiding.

"Because we need the help. Now be nice to the lady."

Kaylee smiled. "Aw, I'm sure she's just shiny."

Jayne growled something unintelligible as the door opened. The lady on the other side wasn't quite what anyone had expected. For one thing, she was much shorter than they had thought, two inches shorter than Kaylee. She was dressed in a faded long sleeved shirt and torn pants. She had a pleasant face that looked like she was used to smiling a lot. Her hair was long, a mass of black curls pulled into a ponytail. And for reasons that he couldn't quite figure, Mal was suddenly reminded of one of River's off days, when she had chucked a hairbrush at his head.

"Hello. I'm Captain Locke. I understand that I'm allowed to get a look at your fuel cells so's I can see if we can help."

Kaylee smiled at her in a friendly way. "I'm Kaylee. Ship's mechanic."

The other woman returned the smile, then glanced over at Jayne. "Who's the firbolg?"

"I'm the guy who's supposed to make sure you don't get any funny ideas." He hefted Vera in a significant way.

The woman, amazingly enough, laughed at this. "Well, then I guess it's a good thing I hadn't had any intention of getting funny ideas."

Kaylee grinned. "Don't pay any mind to him. Come on, the engine room's this way."

Mal shook his head as Kaylee lead the other captain away, Jayne trailing behind.

There was something screwy about the woman, but at least she seemed benevolently screwy. Maybe she would actually prove to be just a concerned, if a bit eccentric, soul. Mal grimaced at himself. He didn't really believe there was such a thing. Did he?

Kaylee watched Captain Locke with fascination. It had been clear from the very start that she knew nothing about the workings of a ship, but she hadn't let that stop her. After Kaylee had shown her the access ports to the fuel cells, she had poked them for a moment, then had pulled a bulky comm out of a pocket and turned it on.

"Hey, Athena."

The display flickered, but no one appeared on the other end. A measured female voice responded. "Yes, Captain?"

"Fuel cells look to be more or less the right type. You have the data to see if Pixel can interface with them?"

"Scanning. It will be just a moment."

Kaylee looked at the comm. "What's that all about?"

Locke grinned. "I don't know anything about engines or fuel cells or whatever, so I get the people who do. There's precious little that Athena don't know about anything, and if she don't know it, she knows how to get it. She's checking to see if we can recharge the cells."

"Oh."

The comm beeped. "It is, in theory, possible. We haven't tried to interface with this particular type of cell, so it's uncertain." There was a faint chitter of electronic noise.

"Pixel would like to point out that we've never tried to recharge any type of Firefly equipment."

"Well, accourse we hadn't tried it with a Firefly. Never run into one in trouble before, there being so few of 'em flying. All right, tell Stitch to go to backup batteries, and help Pixel get dressed up.

"Understood." The comm blinked off.

"Who's Pixel?" Kaylee was very curious. This Captain Locke didn't seem to do things in any sort of order she knew.

"You might say she's our engine and power expert." There seemed to be something obscurely funny about that that Kaylee didn't catch. "You know, I never did understand that about Fireflies."

"What?"

"That no one uses 'em anymore. Best ship you can pay money for, damn near to being the best ship in the 'verse."

Kaylee was of two minds about that; on the one hand, she was fiercely protective of _Serenity_, and tolerated no insults. On the other hand, she was aware that there were probably other models of ships that could out perform a Firefly class. She let it go; the way the remark had been phrased meant it wasn't an insult. "You on a Firefly?"

The captain shook her head. "Nope. Don't rightly know what kind of class it is, if it's got one at all."

Kaylee blinked. How could a captain not know what kind of ship she owned? She was about to ask when Locke's comm beeped. "Captain, Stitch has Pixel ready. Would you like to come get her, or would you like him to bring her to you?"

"I'll go get her. Not entirely sure these people would take kindly to too many strangers on their boat."

There was silence on the other end of the comm. Then the woman on the other end said, "I keep forgetting that not many others know you."

Locke grinned as she stood up and headed out of the engine bay. "Don't signify. These days, it's just perfectly normal healthy paranoia." She turned to look at Kaylee. "I'll be back in about five minutes, start with the recharging. That okay?"

"Sure."

Jayne had been lurking nearby, Vera at the ready. He had, in fact, seemed rather disappointed that the stranger didn't try anything. But somethin' was going on now, so he followed her back out to the cargo bay. He didn't, however, try to follow her back to her own ship.

He was waiting there when Zoe leaned over the second story walkway. "What's the report?"

"Poked some widgets in the engine room, talked to someone on the other ship, talked to Kaylee, and seems to be about to start doin' something. Probably gone to get the equipment and whoever knows how to use it."

Zoe nodded. "Fine. Keep an eye on her."

"Don't have to tell me that."

"Jayne." He looked up at Zoe's commanding tone. "Don't start anything unless you have to."

He grumbled.

The female captain came back very soon. Strangely, she was still alone. She was, however, carrying a large pink cannister the size of a five pound coffee can. "What the _hell_?"

She grinned at him. "Stuff what to recharge you guys with."

"That's it?"

"Yeah." She giggled suddenly. "You might say this is an uber, industrial strength battery."

He gaped at her. "That ain't no battery."

"Well, no, not in the strictest sense of the word. Not quite the best definition I could give you, but the only one I'm willing to offer at the moment." Something in her eyes prevented him from pressing the issue.

He quietly followed her back to the engine room. Kaylee looked at the pink cannister, confused. "That's it?"

"'S all I need." She pulled a handful of cables out of her pocket, and hooked some of them to the canister in a complex way, and others into the fuel cells. A red indicator flashed on the canister, then there was a chirp, and the indicator turned green. "Oh, good. It works. I had been worried it wouldn't."

Kaylee checked her own instruments. The power levels in the fuel cells were indeed rising, and quite rapidly. "I ain't never seen anything like that."

Locke grinned. "Don't guess you have."

"How does it work?"

The grin faltered for a moment, then was back in place. "I might just tell you someday, Kaylee-chan."

And Kaylee had lived on _Serenity_ long enough, and had been involved in enough illicit activities that she caught the way Locke said that, and didn't ask any more about it.

Locke changed the subject. "I figure it'll take two, three hours to get your cells charged back up."

"Sounds about right."

"You mind if I stay here and keep an eye on the pink gumdrop?"

"Nope."

"Shiny. You figure your captain'll mind?"

Kaylee thought. "Naw, it'll be fine."

"Shiny."


End file.
